There are many aspects of the Tower that should remind us of the lessons to be learned within the Death card. All life is change – we can either surrender to this, or fight against it. What the Tower teaches us is that the power of life is undeniable. We can learn our lessons the easy way – by being open and accepting; or we can do things the hard way, clinging to things and ideas that no longer work for us. In that case, life will come along and, like a hurricane, batter us with the winds of change till we submit!So… on a Tower day, we need to examine ourselves to identify the things to which we are clinging that no longer serve us well. We need to be alert to the concepts life itself presents us with. So this day could be one in which people talk relevantly to you, without knowing that they are doing that. Listen carefully for random symbols which will point you in the right direction.When the Tower rules, it is possible that unexpected events will take place that you hadn’t seen coming. If so, remember that to resist change is to deny life, and bear in mind that life is eventually going to win this battle anyhow – so lie back, relax and accept. And keep your sense of humour close at hand!Sometimes we will be asked to take a blind leap of faith under the influence of the Tower – remember this card signals breakthrough and extension – growth from experience, and self trust. Whenever you are unsure about your abilities to deal with things, remind yourself what you have already passed through in your life. There’s a river of knowledge flowing through you already.
Noam Choms Jun 21, 2025 UNITED STATES Noam Chomsky || How Much Time Is Left Until the End of Trump In this deeply thought-provoking and spiritually uplifting speech titled “How Much Time Is Left Until the End of Trump,” you’ll hear a powerful message inspired by Noam Chomsky’s philosophy, calling for collective action, truth, and awakening beyond personalities and politics. ???? This isn’t just a political commentary—it’s a moral and existential call to action. Through rich insights and poetic reasoning, the speech encourages viewers to look beyond a single figure and recognize the systemic forces that made such leadership possible. It reminds us that real change doesn’t come from waiting for saviors—it comes from us. ???? What You Will Learn In This Video: ✅ Why focusing only on one political figure misses the deeper threat ✅ How systemic decay—media, inequality, and disinformation—feeds authoritarianism ✅ The power of collective action and grassroots organizing ✅ Why reclaiming and protecting truth is a spiritual duty ✅ How to rise above despair and awaken to personal responsibility ✅ How the end of a dangerous era depends on the courage and unity of the people ⏱️ Time Lapse 00:00 – Intro 02:30 – The System Is the Problem, Not the Person 06:00 – How Truth Was Broken, and Why We Must Restore It 09:00 – The Myth of the Political Savior 12:30 – Collective Action Is the Antidote 15:00 – Defending Truth as a Sacred Responsibility 18:00 – The Path Forward: Reimagination and Responsibility ???? Why You Should Watch This Video: This video is more than a reflection on politics—it’s a blueprint for personal and collective transformation. If you’re tired of political noise, misinformation, and division, and you long for deep insight rooted in justice and compassion, this speech is for you. It will leave you empowered, informed, and ready to take action from a place of spiritual strength and clarity.
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In astrology, a “point of coincidence” generally refers to an instance where two or more distinct elements in a birth chart, such as planets, aspects, or Arabian Parts, converge or align in a meaningful way. When focusing on Mars, Uranus, and the rising sign (also known as the ascendant), a “point of coincidence” might manifest in a few different ways:
1. Mars or Uranus conjunct the Rising Sign: * Conjunction: This is when Mars or Uranus are in the same zodiac sign and very close in degrees to the rising sign, or even exactly on the ascendant. * Interpretation: A planet closely conjunct the rising sign in a birth chart significantly impacts the person’s personality and how they present themselves to the world. The influence of the planet becomes vitally important, potentially being as significant as the sun sign. * Mars conjunct Rising Sign: Can indicate an assertive, energetic, and potentially impulsive individual who is driven to take action and pursue their desires. * Uranus conjunct Rising Sign: Suggests a need for freedom and individuality, potentially leading to a unique or unconventional self-expression.
2. Mars and Uranus in a strong aspect to the Rising Sign: * Strong aspects: Aspects like the conjunction, square, or opposition involving Mars, Uranus, and the rising sign are considered strong influences. * Interpretation: These aspects suggest a powerful connection between one’s actions (Mars), drive for individuality and freedom (Uranus), and their external self (rising sign). * Mars-Uranus aspects: These aspects can signify a connection between the need to get what one wants and the need for freedom. Challenging aspects like squares or oppositions might indicate struggles in balancing these desires, potentially leading to impulsive actions or conflicts. Harmonious aspects like trines or sextiles suggest an ability to exercise free will in a balanced way.
3. Arabian Points involving Mars, Uranus, and the Rising Sign: * Arabic Parts: These are calculated points in a birth chart based on mathematical formulas involving the positions of planets and other points like the ascendant. * Significance: While the text provided does not mention specific Arabian Points that involve Mars, Uranus, and the rising sign together, the existence of such points is a possibility within Arabian astrology. Their interpretation would depend on the specific formula used and the resulting sign and house placement in the chart.
In summary:
When considering a “point of coincidence” involving Mars, Uranus, and the rising sign in a birth chart, it’s about examining how these elements interact and influence one another. A close conjunction of Mars or Uranus to the rising sign indicates a strong impact on personality and self-expression. Aspects between Mars, Uranus, and the rising sign further refine this influence, highlighting how an individual balances their actions, desire for freedom, and presentation to the world. While the research doesn’t detail specific Arabian Points combining these elements, the concept of Arabian Parts suggests the possibility of calculated points that could offer deeper insights into their combined influence. Astrologers would consider the specific degrees, signs, houses, and other aspects involved in a person’s birth chart for a more comprehensive interpretation.
The Black Sun is a powerful and enigmatic symbol that has captivated the imagination of occultists, mystics, and historians alike. Its meaning is as multifaceted as its appearance, ranging from an alchemical symbol of inner transformation to its more controversial appropriation in neo-Nazi circles. The true power of the Black Sun lies not only in its historical applications but also in its metaphysical significance, representing the dark, hidden forces within the universe and the self.
Origins of the Black Sun Symbol
The concept of the Black Sun finds its roots in esoteric traditions and is closely tied to the idea of the sol niger, or “black sun,” a metaphor for the dark phase of alchemical transformation. In alchemy, as C.G. Jung described in his works, the Black Sun represents the nigredo, the first stage in the process of inner transformation. This “blackness” is symbolic of the dissolution of the old self, a confrontation with the shadow, and the necessary step before spiritual rebirth. Jung referred to the Black Sun as a crucial symbol in the journey of individuation, where the soul confronts its unconscious darkness to achieve enlightenment (Jung, C.G. Jung Speaking).
The nigredo parallels modern psychological theories like Dabrowski’s “positive disintegration,” which sees the breakdown of the ego as a pathway to higher personal development (Dabrowski, Theory of Positive Disintegration). The darkness of the Black Sun, rather than a purely destructive force, contains within it the potential for transformation and rebirth.
The Black Sun in Nazi Esotericism
The Black Sun gained significant attention during the Third Reich, specifically within Heinrich Himmler’s occult pursuits at Wewelsburg Castle, the SS’s ideological center. The infamous sunwheel mosaic found in the “Obergruppenführer” Hall is often linked to this Black Sun symbol. Although the symbol itself is older and can be traced to Germanic and ancient symbology, its association with Nazi ideology has left a lasting and contentious legacy (Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity).
While the Nazi connection has cast a shadow over the symbol, occult circles argue that the Black Sun’s meaning transcends political misappropriations. It represents deeper, esoteric truths about hidden knowledge, inner illumination, and the occult forces that govern both nature and the cosmos (Wilberg, Black Sun: The Occult Power Within All That Is).
Metaphysical and Gnostic Interpretations
In Gnostic traditions, the Black Sun represents an inner power, a luminary of the hidden spiritual realm often referred to as lumen naturae (Wilberg). Rather than viewing darkness as the absence of light, the Black Sun is considered a source of invisible light — metaphysical in nature and often inaccessible to the uninitiated. Helena Blavatsky, in her work The Secret Doctrine, touches upon the concept of the “Central Sun,” which echoes the symbolism of the Black Sun as the ultimate source of creative power, both invisible and cosmic.
This esoteric tradition perceives the Black Sun as part of the eternal cycle of light and dark, creation and destruction. It is not a symbol of malevolence but of the hidden processes of life and death that underlie the universe itself. Similarly, Peter Wilberg expands on this by suggesting that the Black Sun is the source of all occult power, influencing both inner transformation and outer realities (Wilberg, Black Sun).
The Black Sun in Modern Culture
Beyond its historical and metaphysical implications, the Black Sun has appeared in contemporary culture, music, literature, and media. From its references in Gnostic and Nazi esotericism to its inclusion in pop culture, the Black Sun remains a symbol of mystery and power. Bands like Death in June and Coil have invoked its imagery, and the symbol has appeared in works of fiction like James Twining’s The Black Sun and video games such as Wolfenstein (Goodrick-Clarke).
Conclusion
The Black Sun, despite its controversial associations, remains a potent symbol in both occult and modern contexts. Its true significance lies beyond the political sphere, residing in the realm of the mystical and metaphysical. Whether as a representation of the unconscious shadow in Jungian psychology or the source of hidden cosmic power in Gnostic teachings, the Black Sun invites us to explore the depths of inner transformation, the mystery of the cosmos, and the esoteric forces that lie beyond the veil of the visible world.
References
Jung, C.G. C.G. Jung Speaking. Princeton University Press, 1977.
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. NYU Press, 2002.
Wilberg, Peter. Black Sun: The Occult Power Within All That Is. PDF, 2015.
Blavatsky, H.P. The Secret Doctrine. Theosophical Publishing House, 1888.
Dabrowski, Kazimierz. Theory of Positive Disintegration. Little Brown & Co, 1964.
Tens of thousands marched in Budapest Saturday, boldly defying a new law by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling coalition that bans Hungary’s annual Pride celebrations. The revellers kicked off the march in festive style at the opposition-run city hall, staging a direct challenge to the nationalist prime minister.
Issued on: 28/06/2025 – 09:43Modified: 28/06/2025 – 17:06
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With rainbow flags flying high, tens of thousands of people began marching Saturday for the Budapest Pride parade, defying a government ban that marks a major pushback against LGBTQ rights in the European Union.
Organisers expect a record turnout of more than 35,000 people for the 30th edition of the Pride march in the Hungarian capital, despite a police ban imposed by Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s nationalist government.
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“Many, many tens of thousands” are participating, organisers said on social media after the march started, as AFP journalists saw the festive crowd filling squares and streets along the route.
“I am proud to be gay… and I am very scared that the government wants to bring us down. I am very surprised that there are so many people, I want to cry,” a 66-year-old participant, who gave only his first name, Zoltan, told AFP.
Orban’s governing coalition amended laws and the constitution this year to prohibit the annual celebration, justifying his years-long clampdown on LGBTQ rights on “child protection” grounds.
Orban said Friday that while police would not “break up” the Pride march, those who took part should be aware of “legal consequences”.
Parade organisers risk up to a year in prison, and attendees can face fines up to 500 euros ($590).
The latest legal changes also empower the authorities to use facial-recognition technology to identify those who take part, and newly installed cameras have appeared on lamp posts along the parade route.
But participants were defiant as the march began chaotically under a scorching sun.
Marchers repeatedly had to pause to wait for police to stop traffic, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
Akos Horvath, an 18-year-old student who came to Budapest from a city in southern Hungary, said it was “of symbolic importance to come”.
“It’s not just about representing gay people, but about standing up for the rights of the Hungarian people,” he told AFP on his way to the march.
Dozens of European lawmakers also attended in defiance of the ban.
“Freedom and love can’t be banned,” read one huge poster put up near city hall, the gathering point for the march.
Earlier this week, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called on the Hungarian authorities to reverse the ban, while EU equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib travelled to Hungary and spoke in support of the parade on Friday.
Thirty-three nations, including most EU countries, have also released a statement in support of the march.
At a press conference Saturday, several French MEPs called on the EU to take tougher measures against Orban’s government over the crackdown on civil rights and other rule of law issues.
Budapest’s opposition mayor Gergely Karacsony has insisted that no attendee should face any reprisals as the march is a municipal event that does not require police approval.
Some people also gathered along the route to protest against LGBTQ rights at the urging of far-right groups, including by putting up a wooden cross adorned with protest messages.
A woman who gave only her first name, Katalin, told AFP she agreed with the ban though she hoped there would be no clashes.
“Disgusting… it’s become a fad to show off ourselves,” she said.
Since Orban’s return to power in 2010, the country of 9.6 million people has been steadily rolling back LGBTQ rights.
But it is the first to ban a Pride march, with Orban saying he has been emboldened by the anti-diversity push by US President Donald Trump.
“Orban is employing a tried-and-tested recipe ahead of next year’s election by generating a conflict,” political analyst Daniel Mikecz told AFP, saying that Orban was “polarising society”.
Yes, research from Michigan State University indicates that dogs often develop personality traits similar to their owners. This phenomenon is likely due to a combination of factors, including owners choosing dogs that align with their personalities, shared environments, and the influence of daily interactions.
Here’s a more detailed explanation:
Owner Selection:People often choose dogs that have personality traits they find appealing or compatible with their own.
Shared Environment:Dogs and their owners spend a lot of time together, and the dog’s environment, including its interactions with the owner, can shape its personality over time.
Daily Interactions:Owners’ behaviors and interactions with their dogs can influence the dog’s personality, and the dog’s personality can, in turn, influence the owner’s behavior and perception of the dog.
Personality Similarities:Studies show that extroverted owners tend to rate their dogs as more excitable and active, while owners who experience more negative emotions may rate their dogs as more fearful or less responsive to training.
Personality Changes:Like humans, dogs can experience personality changes throughout their lives, and their owners can play a role in these changes.
In 1934, at the foot of Northern California’s towering Mount Shasta, a geologist named J.C. Brown started telling a captivating story to anyone who would listen.
He spoke of an 11-mile tunnel filled with gold and giant skeletons, and said it led straight to the heart of Mount Shasta, an active volcano. Lots of people believed Brown, and soon, he was organizing an expedition into the tunnel.
But it never happened. Instead, mere days before the expedition was scheduled to depart, Brown mysteriously disappeared without a trace.
His story of the treasure-filled tunnel, however, has endured. Because like any good urban legend, it was just close enough to the truth to make it believable.
A time of discovery
Back in 1934, finding treasure inside a mountain was in style.
British archaeologists had discovered the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun just a decade earlier, setting off a series of similar expeditions. King Tut’s tomb contained chambers filled with chariots, thrones, statues and jewelry, and of course, a golden burial mask. Pictures of the latter were shared across the globe.
Several books, including “The Lost Continent of Mu” by James Churchward and “Lemuria: The Lost Continent of the Pacific” by Wishar S. Cerve, popularized the idea that the West Coast of the U.S. was actually the remains of the continent of Lemuria. “Even disbelievers cannot dispute the fact that the mountainous terrain on the west coast is indeed different,” writes Emilie A. Frank, in her 1998 book, “Mt. Shasta: California’s Mystic Mountain.”
Frank told the tale of a “cataclysmic action” that supposedly caused Lemuria to sink.
And although that “action” has never been explained, it apparently prompted North America to rise from Lemuria’s “partially submerged state,” joining the two to form the region we know today. Cerve’s book — “very widely read,” according to Frank — took it a step further, claiming that Mount Shasta was the last refuge for the Lemurians who survived the destruction of their continent.
Cerve even wrote that the Lemurians at one time kept their village hidden on the interior of Mount Shasta and accessed it through a tunnel on the eastern side of the mountain.
People were riveted by the story.
They came from all over the world to find Lemurians at Mount Shasta. Some reported strange lights on the mountain at night. Others even claimed to have met Lemurians. There are still people, to this day, who believe in Lemurians.
“The Lemurians were very tall,” said Jennifer Bryan, a volunteer at the Siskiyou County Historical Society. “They apparently had long arms [and] big heads. No one could ever say they saw them. Supposedly, they came into the communities and traded gold for supplies. Everybody from all over Siskiyou County had heard those stories.”
Separately, Native Americans in the region had long told stories of a giant race of people that once roamed the Earth. Passed down through the Shasta Indian Nation, the Wintu Tribe of Northern California and the Karuk Tribe, some of those stories have included depictions of “mean and fierce” giants known to squeeze people to death. Hoaxes leveraging those beliefs had been perpetrated for years, even at Yosemite National Park.
“People like the mystery of it,” Bryan said. “It’s almost spiritual. They like the feeling that the mountain is spiritual. The Native Americans certainly feel that way.”
A convergence of these discoveries, beliefs and stories was perhaps inevitable.
‘Stories can change’
For Brown, a British geologist seeking his fortune near Shasta, the shoe fit.
When Brown came along in 1934 with a fantastic tale about a tunnel that led him to rooms of copper and gold, statues, hieroglyphics and 27 giant skeletons, ranging from 6 feet, 6 inches to more than 10 feet tall, it quickly gained traction. The geologist claimed he was in the area prospecting for gold at the time of the discovery.
Brown reportedly noticed an unnatural section of rock on a cliff face, which gave way to a cave “that curved downward into the mountain,” Frank wrote. After days of exploring and cataloging, Brown “cleverly concealed the entrance of the tunnel” and left, Frank explained.
“It would be one thing if it was a room full of gold, but the fact that he adds that there were giant Egyptian sarcophagi is another thing,” said filmmaker Michael Flanagan. “That really was believable back then.” That, the location and the presence of giant skeletons were also a dog whistle for anything relating to Lemurians.
Flanagan’s “The Mysteries of Mount Shasta,” based on a book by D.W. Naef, dives into the legends associated with the area, including Brown’s story. But verifying Brown’s claims proved difficult for Flanagan, who found himself relying on old stories, urban myths and scant writings about the alleged tunnel to create a narrative.
“The hard part about old history is that it’s kind of written by the survivors,” Flanagan told SFGATE in a phone interview. “We don’t have a way to ask everyone that was around in 1934. Stories can change over time.”
The weird thing was Brown claimed to have discovered the tunnel in 1904, some three decades before he told the story publicly.
What he did during those 30 years remains up for debate, though most agree he “disappeared here and there” and was mostly off the radar, Flanagan said. He also reportedly told his story to anyone that would listen in bars around Sacramento.
According to Flanagan, it’s believed Brown may have told a few friends and relatives his story, and was thought to visit the tunnel frequently. According to Frank, Brown surfaced in 1934 to advertise a trip to the alleged tunnel and invited more than 80 people from Stockton to tag along.
The group, which met nightly for six weeks to plan the trip, included a museum curator, newspaper editor and a number of scientists, Frank wrote.
“He wasn’t really asking for money,” Flanagan said. “He was telling people that they could have the stuff in two of the rooms, and he basically just wanted what was in one room.” And, after decades of apparently studying Lemurians, Brown also told the group “the antiquities in the cavernous rooms inside Mount Shasta were those of the Lemurians or their descendants,” according to Frank’s research.
The group was scheduled to leave for the tunnel on June 19, 1934.
But that never happened, because Brown never showed. No one from the traveling party ever saw him again. Completely “bewildered,” concerned members of the group even filed a police report, though many still believed there was a tunnel into Mount Shasta, Frank said.
“There are some accusations that some members of the group had something to do with his disappearance,” Flanagan said. “He maybe oversold it or something like that.”
Of course, Brown never revealed the exact location of the tunnel to anyone before his vanishing act.
Years later, researchers would claim Brown’s identity was an alias. Brown — or someone who claimed to be him — is reportedly buried in a Nevada desert, according to Frank’s book. In the decades following his disappearance, there have been a few small expeditions to try and find the tunnel, though “nothing major,” Flanagan said.
Detecting lies
It begs the question: Why?
John Petrocelli has a hunch.
“People are horrible at detecting BS,” he told SFGATE.
The professor of psychology at Wake Forest University is the author of “The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bulls—t,” a book that explores the causes, behavior and understanding of false information and delusional thinking.
“I would imagine the education level of the average individual in the United States in the 1930s was well below what it is today,” he said. “People’s knowledge of basic science and critical thinking, and at minimum their awareness of it, I think would probably go further today.”
People are usually motivated to make up stories to impress or persuade others, or to support some kind of cultural value like politics, Petrocelli added. “Maybe my friends and family and neighbors will vote for something that they wouldn’t otherwise or maybe they’ll join the gang that’s going to go search for this hidden cave,” he said.
It’s also possible that Brown conflated two experiences, Petrocelli said.
But evidence of a hidden village inside Mount Shasta is lacking.
“You can blame it on Indiana Jones,” Flanagan said of the myth’s persistence. “That movie series brought back a good adventure. Everyone likes a treasure hunt. With the advent of the internet and social media and people not fact-checking things, it’s very easy for stuff to get out there like Bigfoot and UFOs.”
Easy, indeed. Particularly if the story is close enough to the truth — or some version of it — to be believable.
Eric Brooks is a multimedia journalist with over a decade of experience in radio and digital storytelling. He hails from the Midwest and now proudly calls the Bay Area home.
At the end of her trailblazing life, having swung open the gate of the possible for women in science with her famous comet discovery, astronomer Maria Mitchell confided in one of her Vassar students that she would rather have authored a great poem than discovered a comet.
A century later, a little girl named Vera had a flash of illumination while reading a children’s book about Maria Mitchell: her nightly pastime of gazing wondersmitten at the stars outside her bedroom window could become a life’s work, work that would culminate in one of the greatest revelations in the history of science.
Vera Rubin confirmed the existence of dark matter by studying the rotation of galaxies. “I sometimes ask myself whether I would be studying galaxies if they were ugly,” she reflected in her most personal interview — a playful echo of Keats’s poignant postulate that “beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
A decade after Vera Rubin returned her borrowed stardust to the universe, the observatory named in her honor opens its oracle eye to the cosmos and blinks back at us the mysteries of ten million bright galaxies. Atop one of the first images captured by the VRO’s 8.4-meter telescope — 678 exposures of the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae taken over the course of seven hours, two trillion pixels of cosmic truth combined into a single gasp of beauty — I have remixed the text of the National Science Foundation press release into a poem using my bird divination process:
Rising forty feet above the rocky cliffs of Carmel is a great poem of gravity and granite that Robinson Jeffers (January 10, 1887–January 20, 1962), poet laureate of the co-creation of time and mind, composed with his wife Una and their twin sons.
A decade before Carl Jung built his famous stone tower in Zurich and conceptualized the realized self as an elemental stone, Jeffers apprenticed himself to a local stonemason to build Tor House and Hawk Tower. As this rocky planet was being unworlded by its first world war, he set about making “stone love stone.”
Seeing stonecutters as “foredefeated challengers of oblivion” and poets as stonecutters of the psyche, he went on hauling enormous slabs of granite up from the shore, carrying time itself, cupping its twelve consolations in his mortal hands, writing about what he touched and what touched him.
Hawk Tower
OH, LOVELY ROCK by Robinson Jeffers
We stayed the night in the pathless gorge of Ventana Creek, up the east fork. The rock walls and the mountain ridges hung forest on forest above our heads, maple and redwood, Laurel, oak, madrone, up to the high and slender Santa Lucian firs that stare up the cataracts Of slide-rock to the star-color precipices.
We lay on gravel and kept a little camp-fire for warmth. Past midnight only two or three coals glowed red in the cooling darkness; I laid a clutch of dead bay-leaves On the ember ends and felted dry sticks across them and lay down again. The revived flame Lighted my sleeping son’s face and his companion’s, and the vertical face of the great gorge-wall Across the stream. Light leaves overhead danced in the fire’s breath, tree-trunks were seen: it was the rock wall That fascinated my eyes and mind. Nothing strange: light-gray diorite with two or three slanting seams in it, Smooth-polished by the endless attrition of slides and floods; no fern nor lichen, pure naked rock…as if I were Seeing rock for the first time. As if I were seeing through the flame-lit surface into the real and bodily And living rock. Nothing strange… I cannot Tell you how strange: the silent passion, the deep nobility and childlike loveliness: this fate going on Outside our fates. It is here in the mountain like a grave smiling child. I shall die, and my boys Will live and die, our world will go on through its rapid agonies of change and discovery; this age will die, And wolves have howled in the snow around a new Bethlehem: this rock will be here, grave, earnest, not passive: the energies That are its atoms will still be bearing the whole mountain above: and I, many packed centuries ago, Felt its intense reality with love and wonder, this lonely rock.
A generation later, another great poet displaced from the bedrock of belonging by another world war tried to make sense of being human by turning to stone:
STONE by Charles Simic
Go inside a stone That would be my way. Let somebody else become a dove Or gnash with a tiger’s tooth. I am happy to be a stone.
From the outside the stone is a riddle: No one knows how to answer it. Yet within, it must be cool and quiet Even though a cow steps on it full weight, Even though a child throws it in a river, The stone sinks, slow, unperturbed To the river bottom Where the fishes come to knock on it And listen.
I have seen sparks fly out When two stones are rubbed. So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; Perhaps there is a moon shining From somewhere, as though behind a hill — Just enough light to make out The strange writings, the star charts On the inner walls.
And although we are “creatures shaped by the planet’s rocky logic,” we are also creatures shaped by the myriad mercies of time, saved over and over by the leap beyond logic that is trusting time.
FORGIVENESS by Maria Popova
May the tide never tire of its tender toil how over and over it forgives the Moon the daily exile and returns to turn mountains into sand as if to say, you too can have this homecoming you too possess this elemental power of turning the stone in the heart into golden dust.
Every day at sundown I would hear him, the invisible shepherd singing on the other side of the ridge, his song filling the gloaming with the sound of the centuries — the same song his father had sung on that same mountain, and his father’s father, and the generations of shepherds before him, their lives wool on the loom of time weaving the story of a place that is a scale model of the world.
The Bulgaria I grew up in was the poorest country in Europe and the most biodiverse per square kilometer. I spent much of my childhood in its remotest mountains, where my grandparents worked as government-deployed elementary school teachers in largely illiterate villages. My grandmother, now ninety, had grown up in those mountains herself, sharing a single straw bed with her three siblings and a three-room house with her trigenerational family of twelve. There were always animals around — pigs and chickens and goat and cows and oh so many sheep — their rhythms, their needs, their moods intertwined with our own. I feel their absence today and in it a reminder that the world we live in — a world of skyscrapers and screens, sterilized of the nonhuman — is unnatural, impoverished, lonely.
After coming of age in New Zealand and living in Scotland, poet and novelist Kapka Kassabova returned to Bulgaria, where she was born a decade before me, to live in its mountains with the nomadic Karakachan shepherds and their ancient breed of dogs in a remote village brought back from the brink of oblivion by a small retinue of young idealists. The modest life of physical toil and privation recompenses her with a new understanding of the tessellated meanings of loyalty, courage, and love, of what it means to be human and how, once we strip the constellation of complexities and artifices that is the modern self, we can begin to see the world as a whole simpler than its parts, unfinished yet complete. Pouring from the pages of Anima: A Wild Pastoral (public library) — one of those books that leave you taking fuller breaths of life — is an elixir to lift the spell that has us entranced by the cult of more, languishing with the loneliness of not enough in a civilization obsessed with scaling business models, having forgotten that the only thing worth scaling is a mountain. It is a love letter to the Karakachan way of being — to the shepherds who in a lifetime of walking with the animals circumambulate the world more than once with their combined footfall, and to their guard dogs who look part wolf and part teddy bear, their growl a volcano erupting in space, their eyes earnest and knowing; it is a love letter to life itself, to the soul of the world coursing through us, the soul beneath the self.
Kassabova writes:
This job requires three things: liking your own company, liking the animals and liking the outdoors, plus not being afraid of anything.
[…]
We have forgotten that this too is something we can do… walk with animals, live with animals, care for animals and be cared for by them. Even make a living from it. Today, it is just as difficult to make a living from pastoral farming as it is from making noncommercial art, music or literature. You must be fuelled by a devotion that can’t be dampened by rain or burned up by fire.
Those who are willing to live such a life are rewarded with a singular sense of purpose, more transcendence than teleology — a kind of repatriation into the family of things, a benediction of time and a consecration of presence:
It was a soothing monastic monotony, a balm for troubled souls, to know your purpose, follow an itinerary and bring the gang back, tired and satisfied after another day of fulfilling your mission. The days were beads in a rosary that passed through your fingers and you felt their texture and shape. The same, but different.
Morning prayer: milk the sheep and take the flock to pasture. Midday prayer: pladnina. Evening vespers: bring the flock home, feed the dogs. Have a humble supper, lie on your hard bed, then rise early and morning prayer.
Drink your coffee, lace up your shoes, strap on your rucksack, take your stick and in sickness and in health, in rain and sunshine, go. The dogs are waiting. The flock is waiting. The hills are waiting. You are needed.
Karakachan dogs guarding their flock
She comes to contact the life-force of water in Black River and the consolation of stone in Thunder Peak. In that way we have of calling love the longing for our own missing pieces — those parts of ourselves we have repressed or abandoned that another embodies — she falls in love with one of the young shepherds, only to discover alongside his extraordinary vitality the self-abandonment of addiction. She wanders the last indigenous pine forests of the Balkans, slakes her soul on a river so icy blue and clean it feels “like the dawn of the earth,” eats with elders who know the real meaning of might: “There are hundred-year-old trees,” say the Karakachans, “but there is no hundred-year-old power.”
You go up, always up. There is something higher, brighter, more saturated in colour, more perfect in shape, different from yesterday, although it’s the same mountain every day. The dogs are by your side, they too are astonished by this moving picture and sometimes when you walk, you feel so light that your feet barely touch the ground, and you realise that these are some of the happiest days of your life.
One of the hardest things to learn in this life — in this epoch, in this civilization — is that all true happiness is the work of unselfing, the kind of surrender to the will of being that some find in a monastery and some in a mountain. Two centuries after Margaret Fuller’s encountered transcendence on a hilltop, Kassabova recounts a moment of pure presence pulsating with the essence of anima — the Latin root of “animal,” meaning “soul,” which the Karakachans believe is embodied by the wind, the breath of life:
I have no face or body when I lie like this on the boundless bed of the hills, I have nothing at all. I am a vessel through which passes the breath of the world.
[…]
The wind is a messenger travelling from afar and I try to catch the message. Like a word that’s not a word, it is a continuous movement of grass and light, of animals and the sun’s orbit. The wind is alive like a being. The wind is the world’s soul passing over me and its message is this, the world’s soul. Anima.
It passes over us when we lie down with the animals. It touches us and moves on. I don’t know where it goes but one day, I will go with it and not wake up anymore.
Such glimpses of the fathomless totality beyond this boundary of skin and story that we call a self wake us up from the illusion we live with. There are infinitely many peepholes into that grander reality, the smallest flower as good as the largest telescope, a hare as good as a hummingbird. Kassabova reflects on hers:
To keep up with the goats required surrender and a suspension of self, at least self in the modern sense, the self that demands to be at the centre of things and not a companion to a bunch of other animals. But maybe the modern self is not quite real. Maybe its understanding of centre and periphery is an illusion. Maybe it wouldn’t be that difficult to give it up. It might be a relief.
She finds this unselfing to be an exponential surrender — to the mountain, to its time and its timefulness:
The higher you went, the harder physical survival became, the more equal you felt to everything. Personas disappeared and essence remained. There is just one essence in all of life. Anima.
[…]
All our lives, we try to arrive somewhere. Where are my ambitions now? I can’t find them. They were never real. How can something unreal take up so much of my time on earth when the only thing that’s real is this mountain? I can’t fathom it. Pirin was named after the old divinity of thunder and fertility, Perun, who is covered in dragon scales. I can see why humans worshipped mountains when they wandered over nine mountains with their flocks. Thunder Peak is the original cathedral. When Notre Dame burns, Thunder Peak is here every morning.
In the end, she discovers what we all do if we live long enough and deep enough — that it is not what we search for but what finds us, what comes unbidden through the side door of our expectations, through the cracks in our plans, that most rewilds our lives with meaning. And that meaning is always inarticulable, something glowing in the abyss between one consciousness and another, something on which language can only shine a sidewise gleam.
I open my laptop and my fingers struggle to type. They are too thick and have almost forgotten their way around the keyboard. Must I squeeze my experiences into such a small space when they are so much larger? As large and layered as the mountain. I look the same as ever, but I feel like a giant. Something has expanded. I don’t know how to explain this. Between the lower world and the upper world there is a problem of language.
And all the time, the earth is trying to make contact.
[…]
The milk, the blood, the rain. All our lives we perform tasks while waiting for something to click into place. For somewhere to put our love.
[…]
Now… I understand what it’s like to have seen something so true and beautiful, you want everyone to be touched by it. Saved, even.
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